Pages

Sunday, 9 December 2012

The beautiful UK
Championship madness started on December 1st and after being through
so many tense matches and unbelievable scorelines, it's time to play the grand
final.

Standing with their head up
high are Shaun Murphy, who managed to obtain a fabulous victory of 9-8 over Ali
Carter, and Mark Selby who easily beat Mark Davis 9-4.

It is said that sometimes,
the semis carry a lot more drama and tension than the final and for the Murphy
v Carter snooker encounter, this rule applies without any doubt.

Clearly in the form of his
lifetime, Carter was in the position of leading Shaun 8-4, with only one more
frame needed to book himself a place in today's final. But the
"Magician" had other plans in mind.

The match started on a
pretty balanced note, at least up until 2-2. However, after that Carter used a
great 101 break to fly two points ahead, while Murphy could only respond with
runs of 34 and 49 to pull back a frame.

The first session ended
with Ali's 79 break that gave him full control of the match, this year's World
Championship runner-up leading 5-3.

As the lads returned into
the arena, Carter didn't lose any time and fired in breaks of 79 and 80 to go
just one step away from the finish-line.

It was in that very moment,
when the "Magician's" force unleashed itself under the form of breaks
like 59, 76, 49, 105 and 78 to perform probably the most unthinkable comeback
of this tournament. The scoreline was now 8-8.

Selby regains his world number one position

Shocked, but still eager to
win Carter started the decider and got the run of the balls pretty quickly.
Sadly for him though, he broke off at 32 after missing a red with the rest,
Murphy coming to the table to end the match with runs of 39 and 29 for a great
9-8 victory and a well-deserved place in the final.

Less spectacular, but quite
tense here and there, the match featuring Mark Selby and Mark Davis had a
pretty clear result, 9-4, result that guarantees Selby's to get his world
number one position back.

With just a top break of
121, Selby took off to a 3-0 lead, before Davis
responded with a 76 to win his first frame of the day.

As the first session of the
match developed Davis
didn't manage to win more than one frame (which was captured with a great 80
clearance, it must be said), while Selby hit in runs of 42, 81 and 51 to go 6-2
up.

At returning into the
arena, things didn't seem to change must, Selby continuing to cruise towards
victory with runs of 64, 76 and 41, to which his opponent was unable to address
more than a 50 break during frame 10 and won a scrappy affair two frames later.
Final scoreline 9-4.

And so Shaun Murphy and
Mark Selby are seeing their names in shiny letters today, as the 35th
edition of the UK Championship is waiting for a new champion to lift that
beautiful trophy.

Be sure to watch the lads
in action from 2:15pm (first session) and from 10pm (the last session) – UK time.